BrokenPromise

South Town Scuffle: Two Wolves (Terry Bogard VS Broken Promise)

I can add it back in later if you don't think it's a big deal. We can talk about it after you've read her present sheet.

South Town Scuffle: Two Wolves (Terry Bogard VS Broken Promise)

Thanks for understanding sport! Good luck with your other posts. I just did a writing marathon so I can use a breather.

I'd have responded sooner, but I didn't want to do so before having my sheet finished "enough." I was going for an old boxing announcer vibe, but that indeed does sound a lot like the rock now that I see it.

Also, I'm subscribed to this topic, so it isn't essential to keep mentioning me every time you post. You can keep doing it of course, it makes me feel extremely important when you do so.

Aside from getting all of Mika's notes in order and adjusting some flavor text, I decided to ditch "The Final Lives of Stripes." A trio of free teleports that kick in just before you take damage in an RP where a single hit severely impacts a characters performance is a nice tool to have. But it didn't feel very fighting game esque to be able to instantly avoid all of Terry's supers, so I ditched it.

South Town Scuffle: Two Wolves (Terry Bogard VS Broken Promise)

Red Savior

Mika Fang

"We’re all headed to the meat grinder. The question is who’s next on the butcher’s block."

"Why get to know me, something so temporary?" _____________________________________________________ NAME: Mika Fang _______________________________________________ EPITHET: Red Savior (Formerly Cerberus) _______________________________________________ AGE: Twenty-Seven _______________________________________________ SEX: Female _______________________________________________ HEIGHT: Sixty-Eight Inches _______________________________________________ WEIGHT: Hundred-thirty-five pounds _______________________________________________ NATIONALITY: American, Indian Heritage _______________________________________________ LIKES: Monster Slaying, Quiet people, Illustrations _______________________________________________ DISLIKES: How meaningless it all is, Monsters, Timekeeper

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OVERVIEW

"Nothing persists."
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APPEARANCE

"We are constantly changing. We stop only when we die."
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Like most American natives, Mika has darker skin than most caucasians. Her hair is black and shoulder length, and her piercing green eyes are always scanning her surroundings. She doesn’t smile often, and tends to dress “business casual” regardless if she’s at work or not. She doesn’t wear low cut shirts due to a burn scar just below her collarbones. Though it can’t be completely covered without makeup, as it trails up the left side of her neck.

She can also transform into her “ideal self,” which give her a similar but different shape. Her hair is long and white, her ears become elongated like a werewolf or elf, and her facial features become more angular and less round. Then there’s her wardrobe change, which leaves her looking like some mature and gothic looking little red riding hood.

PERSONALITY TRAITS

"Some aspects of me will never change. They will ultimately be what dooms me."
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Mika has a rather nihilistic outlook of the world and is not fun at parties. She’s embraced the idea that whether you survive a fight or not depends on a lot of factors and is effectively a gamble. If you keep rolling those dice, you’re eventually going to get snake eyes and lose everything. Your skill, equipment, number of friends, and tactical genius will only delay this eventuality for so long. The only way to survive for a time is to quit while you’re ahead. But Mika knows she can’t stop killing monsters. She also believes that what she’s fighting is so massive and unconquerable that her struggles are merely delaying the inevitable end of humanity. What can one person really do? Yes, she’s something of a fatalist.

Just about everything Mika does involves the eradication of monsters. She does not spend her time leisurely. If she eats, it’s to keep up her strength to kill monsters. If she makes money, it’s to improve her gear so that she can kill more monsters. If she’s talking to an acquaintance, it’s to maintain connections so that they can kill monsters. It always comes back to monster slaying. Though Mika is self aware enough to not let that on unless she has to.

Those who are not involved with her second life, or her main life as she calls it, likely view Mika as a cold and distant person. She does not emote very much, and when she does joke around her delivery is so deadpan that most would assume she was being serious

BACKSTORY

"Everything is a cycle, and while the cycle persists, we will not."
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Mika was born in the northern part of America in a rural town. She was more or less a welfare check for her parents, so they didn’t give her a lot of supervision. The child was curious and explored a lot, which often got her in trouble. Though this behavior would turn out to be a blessing in disguise, as she was out of the trailer park when a drug deal went sour. Many people died, her parents included. She was adopted by a special agent named Su Fang after the incident, who had also been the one responsible for dealing with this entire scenario. Mika wouldn’t learn for several years that her parents had ultimately died because of monster activity. Monsters like to manipulate humans into doing their bidding for them before feeding on the despair their tragedies create.

Su Fang was part of a government unit known as GEMINI (Government Esper and Monster Intelligence and Neutralization Initiative) and dealt with these paranormal events on a regular basis. She kept Mika in the dark about most of it, and treated her more like her own child than her parents ever did. She helped Mika with her homework and made sure she got a proper education, along with proper discipline. The procrastinating adventurer was slowly being shaped into a fine member of society, but then at the age of sixteen, Su’s life was tragically ended by a monster king pin, which set Mika on her lifelong quest for revenge against all monsters.

She had inherited her mother’s “grimoire,” an artifact that lets people become an esper. Espers in this context are warriors who can change into an ideal self and more easily perceive and fight monsters. She continued her foster mother's work at GEMINI and served in a squad with Ashley Avenir, Finnegan Vanhorn, and several others. Finn would eventually defect (after screwing up more than a few operations) and invoke GEMINI's ire. Not long after, Oros the Mad would show Mika that while Su Fang was ultimately killed by a monster king pin, it had been Finn's incompetence that caused GEMINI to suffer. Fortunately, Mika would not need to wait long to attempt her revenge.

During their next encounter, Finn was able to commandeer a mech and defeat Ashley, and was close to defeating Mika as well. But a cursed artifact she had brought to the battle awakened and transformed her esper form into Red Savior. While this granted her a wealth of power, she's never been the same.

She left GEMINI shortly after slaying the last of Pax Septimus's mighty kingpins. All the regulations and ethical practices were things that the monsters had learned how to abuse. That and the organization as a whole was filled top to bottom with incompetent people.

And so Mika Fang continues her unending quest as Red Savior, a freelance esper who won’t stop until she’s dead or monsters as a whole have been eradicated from the world.

At least, that’s one way things can end.

FIGHTING STYLE & ABILITIES

"I take fighting seriously, I hope you do as well."
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SKILLS & ABILITIES

”Will you be what kills me?"
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Mika might be a government agent, but to access all of her powers, she has to enter her esper form and become Red Savior. Espers are effectively a superhero or magical girl/boy persona that grants the transformer peak human abilities along with other supernatural powers. Espers do battle with primitive weapons as they take magic more easily than modern firearms do. Magic is more or less the only way to hurt a monster without being one yourself.

As Red Savior, Mika becomes a bully/install style fighter. She comes equipped with two twelve inch daggers and knows how to use them. They are her primary source of damage. The daggers are enchanted to rend through magical effects more easily and are most effective on planner creatures such as monsters.

All espers are capable of casting spells called melodies. Melodies can generally be used a multitude of ways, from being activated on contact, flung like a stone, fired like a laser, or spawned directly at the point of impact. Mika’s melodies are all based around summoning animal spirits and tapping into the powers of nature. Though it’s a very macabre version of spirit magic, twisted by her ambition to end all monsters despite the impossibility of her task. She tends to be conservative with her melodies, and primarily uses them to augment her attacks or create openings.

Her esper form also has a sort of “eject” feature. When an attack is going to hit her, she can become incorporeal for a time and reposition herself. It has a finite number of uses, enabling her to fight more recklessly than she normally would.

Finally, Mika has the ability to alter the past. There are some rules and limitations in how she does this, but so long as she doesn’t create a paradox it’s fair game.

FEATS & SPECS

”Will you be what kills me?"
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The weakest espers are capable of matching olympic record holders in terms of ability. Red Savior is an exceptionally strong one. She can…

-Sprint at about Fifteen meters per second (a bit over Forty-Eight feet)

-Deadlift about Two-Thousand LBs (or Nine-Hundred-Twenty Kg, see how I switched the units?)

-Has reflexes and endurance that is about Fifty percent higher than what a peak human can manage.

When it comes to resisting damage, it entirely depends on what is hurled at her. Espers are very resistant to attacks from paranormal creatures. An attack that could split a man in two would stagger an esper backwards. Espers are also resistant to arcane and arcane-like effects, though not to the same degree. A magical fire would burn an esper, but not catch them on fire. A magical sword that might cut through a man would leave extensive bruising and maybe a cracked rib if it was swung hard enough. Espers are the least resistant to physical dangers. While Red Savior has higher physical resistances than most espers, it is not especially noteworthy in the realm of superhuman fighters.

SIGNATURE MOVES

"I don’t hold back."
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■ Transform!

Mika can switch between her normal form and Red Savior. This changes her outfit, arms her with her weapons, and protects her identity. It impossible for people to look at Red Savior and think she looks anything like Mika, despite being the same person. The only way she can be exposed is when it’s the only logical explanation. IE: She transforms in front of someone or Red Savior walks out of an area that only Mika was in.

■ Ballroom Blitz no mp cost

Mika charges forward and slices through the air. Her wild slicing makes her immune to magical projectiles and she can deflect physical ones if they aren’t too big/explosive.

■ Indian Spirit Magic

Mika is capable of tapping into a finite pool of mana (MP) to cast spells. Some of her specials require her to expend MP to use them. She has ten MP and recovers one MP at the start of her turn. Any melody she casts must be made entirely out of unique notes with no duplicates.

■ Melody Casting

All of Mika’s casting is done through a spell casting system known as “Melody Casting.” Components of the spell are strung together like notes on sheet music before being unleased. The first “note” in a melody determins how it is cast and how quickly it can be cast. All notes that are part of the outgoing melody must be chained together before casting the melody, and cannot be changed once fired off.

■ Self Cast no mp cost

The melody is channeled inside a part of Mika’s body and only affects her. After composing the melody for half a second, it is instantly cast.

■ Touch Cast no mp cost

Mika channels her magic into her hands, feet, or weapon, and can cast by touch. After composing the melody for half a second, it takes a fraction of a second to cast the melody on whatever she touches/hits.

■ Projectile Cast no mp cost

After composing a melody for half a second, Mika may launch a projectile that flies faster than a stone throw, but slower than a bullet. It generally takes about a half a second for a projectile to fly from the esper’s hand and hit the target. The projectile looks like a small spectral animal, like a hedgehog, cat, or fox.

■ Beam Cast no mp cost

Mika can fire a a high speed projectile that flies in a straight line. While the projectile fires instantly, it takes a full second for Mika to line up her shot and half a second to compose the melody. Projectiles of this nature manifest as the head of a snarling spectral animal before firing off instantly.

■ Spawn Cast one mp

With focus and little else, Mika can choose a point in space and activate a melody there without a clean shot. It takes half a second to compose a spawn melody, but two seconds to cast it. The air is filled with spectral ectoplasm before it coalesces into an animal’s head and bites the area Mika had focused on.

■ Effect Notes

Notes that Mika can add to her melodies to make them invoke effects when they strike her target. She can use as many notes as she likes in a melody, but must pay the mana cost for each one. Using more than one effect note causes the next one to cost an additional point of MP, which increases as more effect melodies are added.

■ Damage no mp cost

The melody will damage the target. Wounds created with this note can be lethal to most monsters and baseline humans if the melody strikes near important arteries. Espers, Magi, and other arcane resistant targets are often hampered but not wholly inconvenienced by wounds from this note. They will suffer extensive bruising or moderate cuts when struck with this note.

The damage note offers a balance between being potent enough to kill monsters, but weak enough to soften stronger foes or test defenses. It’s low cost ensures an esper won’t burn all of their mana on experimental attacks.

■ Damage X two mp

The melody is fully capable of breaking bones and causing deep lacerations, even on espers.

The “take no prisoners” version of the damage note. This isn’t something to be used during a sparring match. It’s also quite expensive to miss with and is not a note to be used lightly.

■ Pull no mp cost

The melody pulls the target struck by the melody. The force is strong enough to pull an adult male 10 feet. If the melody is targeted at a specific point, it can be used to turn someone sideways, cause them to trip, etc. effects are considerably weaker on massive objects, like cars or large monsters. Targets that are airborne and have nothing to hold them down can be pulled three times as far.

■ Blink one mp

Mika teleports to where the effect activates after a half second delay. The esper’s opponent knows when the casting esper is going to teleport after it’s been cast. Teleportation fails if the spell activates in an area that cannot fit the teleporting esper. The esper can also decide not to teleport where the effect activates, but the mana spent on the note will still be expended.

■ Shield one mp

Mika can cover herself in a shield that resists physical attacks. Lasts 6 seconds.

Also during the shield’s duration, it can absorb a single physical attack. Think Super Armor.

■ Reflect one mp

Like the shield note, but only works with arcane-like effects. The damage negation shield does not resist non-damage effects such as pushes and debuffs.

■ Magic Sense one mp

For 6 seconds, Mika can sense magical effects such as illusions, cloaking, enchantments, and other special moves of a supernatural nature. They can also understand what they will do before it is cast.

■ Minor Heal no mp cost

Mika bolsters her body’s natural ability to heal and attempts to close all wounds over a specific area of her body, such as the head, each arm, each leg, or torso. Cuts and bruises can be healed completely, bleeding stops, and non-magical infections are cured. But Minor Heal is only 50% effective on deep lacerations and broken bones, and 25% effective on missing limbs or vital organs. Wounds that are not completely healed can still impair an esper and are prone to regressing if treatment is not finished.

■ Heal two mp

Similar to minor heal, only It is 100% effective on deep lacerations, and broken bones, and is 50% effective on missing limbs or vital organs.

■ Purify two mp

Removes negative effects caused by physical/chaotic afflictions, such as tear gas or a poisonous breath attack.

Purify will not heal wounds, and can only remove a single effect that Mika chooses.

■ Dispel two mp

Removes arcane effects or unbinds arcane constructs.

Dispel will not heal wounds. If trying to remove arcane effects, dispel can only remove a single effect, Mika’s choice.

■ Construction one mp

Mika’s melody is able to summon a large spirit animal where it lands. It cannot have a volume greater than a 15x10 foot cube. The final shape of the creature need not fit inside a cube, but none of its dimensions can go beyond double the cube’s size. It might be better to think of them as statues as they are unable to move beyond swinging their tails or moving their eyes. It doesn’t take more than a few hits to cause them to dissipate into ectoplasm.

■ Summon no mp cost

Creates a spirit animal that can fight on Mika’s behalf. Minions can be as small as a house cat or as big as a gorilla, but their power is relative to a human scaled up or down depending on if the summon was made larger or smaller than an adult human. IE: A summon twice as big as a human has double the reach and strength a human would have, regardless of what form it takes. They are capable of following simple commands, such as “flip that switch” or “protect the cargo”. Their fighting abilities are weak when compared to an esper, but can be distracting.

■ Modification Notes

Notes that Mika can add to her melodies to alter other notes, such as the duration of an ability or where a cast comes from. She can use as many notes as she likes in a melody, but must pay the mana cost for each one. Using more than one modification note causes the next one to cost an additional point of MP, which increases as more modification notes are added. This does not share the same cost creep as effect notes.

■ Full Extend two mp

Notes with a duration last 30 seconds longer.

■ Bend no mp cost

The melody is cast from a source of the esper’s element.

■ Homing no mp cost

Melody homes in on a chosen target. Attempts to dodge the melody through reflexes alone will fail, but it will not avoid obstacles such as cover or barriers.

■ Avoid no mp cost

The melody will make adjustments to its flight path to avoid obstacles on the way to its target. It will avoid stationary obstacles and obstacles that move as fast as a thrown stone. Melee attacks and faster projectiles can intercept a melody with an Avoid note. Avoid does not make the melody more accurate or cause it to track the target.

■ Condition Notes

Notes that Mika can use to issue special trigger conditions. The melody will cancel itself out or affect the desired target on impact. Not many of Mika’s abilities make use of condition notes, so they will not be explained in depth. Just know that if mika hits the wrong target, her melodies are not required to activate.

■ Multi-Cast ?? mp

Allows Mika to cast an additional melody. Cost of use is equal to the number of notes in the first melody Mika is using. Cannot be used to cast more than two melodies on a single turn, but mika’s second melody is composed and cast twice as fast.

■ Nature Notes

All espers have access to two exclusive notes that pertain to their element. Mika’s element is “Nature” which gives her access to [Transform] and [Poison]. While these are treated exactly like effect notes, they are special and are inexpensive for their strength. Espers tend to build their entire arsenal around their elemental notes.

■ Poison no mp cost

Causes the target to become poisoned, which lowers their speed of movement by 10% as the debuff persists. After 3 post cycles, the debuff becomes “neurotoxin,” which does severe damage to arteries near the targeted area. Non-living targets instead are structurally weakened by corrosive acid.

■ Transform no mp cost

Mika can transform her limbs to be used as weapons or tools, such as tendrils, living vines, claws, or other shapes related to the caster’s element. The new length of anything made from this note can be 4 feet longer than the existing weapon/limb. Transformations last 6 seconds tops.

RED SAVIOR EXCLUSIVE: Additionally, Mika can give herself a bonus by altering her body. (Strength of a bear, speed of an ostrich/horse, etc) that persists as long as Transform does.

SUPER MOVES

"Your turn to die!"
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■ Number of the Beast

Mika casts [Transform] six times on herself.

■ Mad World

Mika is able to cause the past to change so long as it would not change how the RP played out up to this point.

WEAKNESSES & LIMITS

"Each fight is a roll of the dice, and when your number’s up…"
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Mika has a lot of powerful options available to her, but most of them draw from her finite pool of mana. Her mana is always recovering but the far more practical and versatile note combinations are well beyond what she can recover quickly. Without her mana, she loses a lot of her stronger options and tends to be less physically able than her opponents without them.

She also cannot stay transformed without her daggers. If she lets go of her daggers for more than six seconds, she'll revert back to her normal form and be much weaker.

OTHER

"Get everything in order."
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■ She’s effectively an edgy shaman indian warchief when you think about it.

Red Savior's Quotes

”...And?” (Taunt)

”Found you...” (Taunt)

”Your turn to die!” (Taunt)

“Hmmm...” (Whiffing Critical)

“Get up, there’s no time to rest during an operation.” (Round Win)

*Was that it?” (Round Win)

“Retire from fighting, it does not suit you.” (Perfect Round)

"The result of expertise and negligence clashing." (Perfect Round)

"It’s over?" (Round Loss)

WIN QUOTES

“A weak leader, and a weaker opponent. Go to your brother, Orion, I’ll do the fighting.” (Vs. Ashley Avenir, Knight of Tomorrow)

“Good riddance. If only I had gotten to you twelve years sooner…” (Vs. Finnegan Vanhorn, Timekeeper)

“I understand the desire to be a positive force in the world. All the more reason for you to stay off the battlefield.” (Vs. Marrie Knight)

“You were so excited when you became an Oros. A shame it didn’t make you less foolish." (VS. Himiko Yoshikawa, Sovereign)

“Perpetually confused, right until your shoulders hit the floor…” (Vs. Asher, Dead Head)

“Stop pretending to be mad all the time. Espers take on their ideal appearance, you can’t honestly hate being short.” (Vs. Cirilla, whisper in the dark)

“God will take me to see my mother when he’s good and ready.” (Vs. Noah Anderson, The Walking Church)

“...Where were you? The fight is already over.” (Vs. Justin, Noble Spark)

Symphony on High

"Ciri’s gunna be so proud!"

— Amanda

It did not need to be told twice.

The shadow vaulted off, but not before Amanda had gotten a head start on it . Getting shot was no joke, and even with it there to protect her, Ciri needed a moment to catch her breath and fire. Fortunately, there was still time to do that. But it wasn’t a spray of blood that filled the air, but fragments of Viper’s pillaged armor. Bits of kevlar and polymer filled the air like confetti. But Amanda didn’t slow down.

It dawned on Ciri that she might have been out of her fucking element here. As she rushed ahead, she sent a message to Luna.

"Kiiiinda busy dealing with nuns and weretigers right now." Luna stated what should have been obvious. "If you see a kid monster, you know what to do." It was pretty standard in crisis situations like this to evacuate monsters as soon as possible. Maverick Alternative hadn’t fully entered the building yet, but the forces that met them at the door would be enough to hold their advance for a time. It seemed like Ciri was on her own. Behind enemy lines with the most important monster recovery of her career and an old foe she desperately wanted to settle the score with.

Upon coming up the stairs, Ciri could see Amanda ahead of her. She had ducked into a corner to avoid Viper. A yellow ball of mist soared out of her hands and landed on the ground. It just stayed there, but Amanda ran further away from it.

"Ah! It’s burning!"

Ciri could perceive very tiny yellow dots leaping off of the yellow projectile. Maybe those seemingly harmless dots were what had burned Amanda. But that didn’t matter now. Ciri’s melody had been composed, and she was ready to sing.

Two weretigers came out of the darkness, and Viper attempted to hide behind them. But there was no dodging the projectile. It surfed right over them and struck true. And just like before, it only managed to obliterate her helmet. It was an attack that would have caved a normal esper’s head in, but she appeared to be totally unharmed aside from her destroyed helmet. She wore a bandana underneath, a scarf too, and of course her gas mask.

Something weird was going on here. A bullet was enough to blow up her armored suit, but a powerful melody could only blow up her helmet? Did it not matter how strong Ciri’s attacks were?

"Ciri?" Amanda called out. "Did you get her?"

Viper shrugged her shoulders. "I heard Maverick Alternative was going all out on this one. You even brought a dragon along." She rolled her shoulders. "It might surprise you to know that we have a dragon of our own."

There was movement in the corner of Ciri’s eye. To her right, a window overlooked the side street from the second story. She could see the scaly belly of something large and metallic. The pointed shapes that covered its body were more akin to spikes than scales, but it looked like it could be part of a dragon.

"Regina also wanted a rematch. She’s been training for this." Viper and the two weretigers at her side started to walk backwards. "Maybe if you win your qualifying match, you can face me in the finals."

A talon broke through the wall just behind Ciri’s position. It wiped out the stairs, and would soon be arriving at Ciri’s position.

---

"I’m surrounded by clowns, and I’m not even fighting Maverick."

— Finnegan Vanhorn

"...REALLY??? My expectations were low but holy shit, I thought you were smarter than that."

Despite being aware that Elroy probably won’t risk hitting Timekeeper’s mech again, Ashley decided to bait the behemoth into doing so anyway, narrowly avoiding the volley of blades and fire to slide beneath it and double tap him.

None of Elroy’s vitals were exposed, save his arms. The techno bolts caused the behemoth a great deal more pain than the mech, with seams opening up along the length of the arm. But this was a behemoth, and any damage it suffered was a flesh wound unless it was targeted at its weak point. After a howl of pain, one of the hands slid towards the mech, or more specifically, to the person hiding under it. As the giant demon leaned in, his head and horns obstructed the light coming in from the room above.

"Well, have fun with that."

Finn aimed away from the giant arm and fired a lightning bolt to get out of the way of that. The mech reappeared a small distance away, moving to go support Klava. Ashley’s going to need to deal with the more immediate threat quite literally looming over her before going after him.

With the mech out of the way, The hand sped up, its massive fingers spreading wider.

It was true that Raven was an effective anti-esper esper. And while Mika lacked an instrument that did physical damage, she had proven to be a good team player for the other espers. But their opponent was Klava, who might as well have been anti-everything. She rarely got as much as a scratch during most operations, and whatever deal she had struck with Bookman had made her far stronger than she had ever been.

Her sash wrapped around the pillars like monstrous tendrils. Her trajectory was erratic and fast. Raven fired many times, but she never hit anything but air. Mika used her claws to sever one of the sashes, but then three more joined in to make up for it. Even espers gifted with flight likely wouldn’t have been able to keep up with the frigid esper’s tricks. It was at least fortunate that the demon was leaning into the hole now, and was purely focused on fighting Ashley now.

"She’s fast!"

Klava sped up, shooting straight for Raven. The high tech esper flinched and brought her arm up in front of her face.

Mika prepared a melody, and her eyes flashed as she did so.

…

…

…

Raven sighed. She had just finished preparing for the operation when Mika approached her.

"Hey."

"Oh." Raven was a little surprised to see the distant teenager talking to her. "What’s up? Need help packing."

"I’m fine. I need you to do something for me though."

"I’m listening."

"You brought a flashbang with you, right?"

"I usually do."

"It’s really important that you have one this time. You’ll want to have quick access to it."

"...Okay." Raven could tell Mika was being serious, even if she was acting a little weird. "I have a pocket in my cape. Is that good enough."

Mika nodded. "Someone’s going to try and cut your arm off. If you hold your cape in front of yourself, and they hit your flash bang, you’ll be spared."

"Won’t that burn me?"

"Not if you protect yourself with a melody."

Raven chuckled. "Well, I can protect myself from the explosion, but that flash will disorientate me."

"I’ll cure your eyes if that happens." Mika said as a matter of factly. "Just make sure you do it, we can’t lose you early in the fight."

"Don’t worry! I’ll do it!." Mika departed without saying another word. It was such a strange and specific request. She almost didn’t follow through with it. But the certainty in her voice made her hard to ignore.

…

…

…

And now, she was glad she listened.

An energy bubble spread over Raven’s body, perfectly sealing her off from physical attacks. This happened just moments before Klava’s blade bit into her cape. The blow was hard enough to split the grenade, and mix the contents inside. A blinding flash filled the room. Klava stumbled backwards, as did Raven.

"Gah!" But Raven’s disorientation was short-lived. A spiritual stote soared through the air and rubbed its torso against Raven’s face, and her disorientation and blindness vanished in an instant. She raised her gun to shoot Klava, but her bullet struck the foot of Finn’s mech instead.

Mika hissed. "If only he tried this hard as an agent..."

Klava rose to her feet. "I’ve got it under control, but thanks."

Meanwhile, even if Cerise did fall back to shield Binky from enemy gunfire, she continued to keep an eye out in case Ashley ended up in trouble. So seeing the demon behemoth reaching down to grab the Knight of Tomorrow, she held a free hand out, ready to fire a pull melody to get her out of arms reach. "Orion! Over here!"

Marrie was putting a lot of her mana into this one. But Sofron wasn’t giving her a lot of choices. He already had a head start on her with his own melody, and she fully intended to beat him to the punch. His hand got hotter, Marrie’s melody surged through her arm, and then she reached out just as the palm of his hand started to glow white.

Then they swapped.

Marrie and Sofron were standing back to back. Sofron fell about a foot and a small explosion shot out of his palm. It wasn’t hard to picture that decapitating someone. But Marrie was too busy following up to care about what could have happened. She dispelled any negative energies that may have been inside her body and carried on. Between the disorientation and surprise, it wasn’t difficult to ram her weapon into the side of his neck. Crimson oozed over her blade, and she ran backwards as he reached to pull it from his neck.

The blade was only eight inches long, so it was not long enough to go all the way through his neck. But when Marrie gave it a tug, it definitely seemed like that bothered Sofron more than anything else that had happened to him ever. He had been drowned, stabbed, and shot, but this was the first time he looked genuinely weak. That look of reserved dignity was replaced with the wide eyed look of a man who’s life was spiraling out of control and was trying to figure out where it went wrong. He used one hand to stem the flow of blood rushing out of his neck, and the other he pointed down the hall at Marrie.

By now Marrie had put enough distance between herself and Sofron that his men felt like they could safely intervene. They started to pile in around Sofron and behind Marrie, but brandished Ka-bars and billy clubs as they closed in.

With Marrie starting to get swarmed in, she’d suddenly feel something else strike her in the head. But she’d feel…pretty much nothing from it. No pain, no bleeding, instead her face rapidly healed itself from the magical burns. Cereza had her bow aimed at her. "Should’ve shouted for me, kid!" She called out to her, turning her sights towards Sofron’s minions. She aimed at the ones covering him in the front, and fired another melody aimed at one of their heads, following it up with firing more normal arrows to keep their attention towards her. The miko was trying to get Marrie another opening.

Binky was also assisting, muttering something under her breath _{"S-So cool..."}

---

"You can’t dismiss the devil after making a deal."

— Bookman

Dismissed or not, Bookman was already on the phone making a call. While Himiko couldn’t be rid of him so easily, it was pretty easy to tune him out as she addressed her new hires and one old one.

"Oros? Really?" Ayana raised an eyebrow. "I think it’s smart to ditch the Sovereign moniker, but why take on the persona of a mad esper that everyone wants dead?" Though after some thinking, her eyes shot open. She came to a realization. Ayana pulled a ball of tinfoil out of her pocket and fabricated it into a hat. She placed it on top of Himiko’s head and then held two rare earth magnets on either side of her head. "I knew they chipped you! Oros must be part of a psyop where they turn their own into depraved espers. It’s their intent to scare us freelancers’ straight and abandon our posts! Tell me Himiko, is your desire to buy a new washing machine subsiding?" She gently massaged the magnets against her temples. The cool metal wicked the heat out of her skin.

Magical Dream Princess stared at Himiko, unblinking. But Pink Pounder was more responsive.

"Got it."

He stepped back into the hallway and ran down to the other end. MDP followed after him, but was slow about it. She stepped over a few of the sleeping bodies and wandered through the labyrinthine complex until she encountered Pink Pounder again. He had broken into a locker room that had some unusually secure lockers. They looked more like safes, and each one had a slot for a key card reader. He was trying various keycards on them that he had pulled from the unconscious guards.

"Pwink Pwoundah." She rubbed her arm. "is iwt gawna be uwukay? I was huwping thawt we wewe done with gemini. They might be mwean, but i don’t wawnt tuwu huwut thewm."

Pink Pounder looked up from the lockers. He stepped towards her and hugged her shoulders with one arm. "We put a ‘looking for work’ request up. Our employer kept some of the finer details hidden, but we agreed that we wouldn’t have an issue fighting espers, monsters or ‘our other enemies.’ And the pay is good." He stepped back in front of a locker. "They didn’t specify that we had to kill anyone, which is why we knocked out all the guards." The next keycard caused one of the lockers to pop open. He rummaged through the contents until he came across an abacus. Pink Pounder grabbed it with both hands and attempted to twist it apart, but it wouldn’t break. "This should be it."

He ran back to Himiko’s position and presented her with the abacus. "Was this what you wanted?"

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

"Snap, Crackle, Pop, Bitch."

— Suki Oyama

Part of Oros wanted to stay with Acid Drop, but it seemed like a pointless endeavor. If she wanted Oros gone, she would just have to respect her wishes. It had been several days and Suki had precious few ideas as to what she could even do to make this problem go away. There weren’t many people who could or even wanted to offer help. But really, this felt like something Oros should have been able to take care of by herself. Acid Drop was her partner, and even though she had harmed her in the past, Acid Drop had never tried to get even with her. Of course Oros had only thrown something at her because of what happened with Kate, but it was an action she was starting to regret more and more as Acid Drop’s "funk" continued. Maybe it was contagious; Oros typically wasn’t this dour. The joy she usually felt after transforming was nowhere to be found.

It was even difficult to want to pursue the frog maiden, who also seemed a lot more depressed than normal. She hadn’t been listening to the conversation as she missed most of it and was spacing out for the rest. Was she really going to leave town again? Honestly it was weird that she had come back. It was weird that she had stopped. It was weird. Frogs were weird too, but their little cold blooded bodies felt good in the summer heat. Maybe Kaeru had discovered a frog prince that took up all of her time. Then as the months wore on, perhaps passions cooled. Or maybe she learned that the frog prince had a frog princess back home, and she was just a fling. She doubted she would ever know the truth, so Oros would just have to assume a froggy affair was what had happened.

Welp, mission accomplished anyway. If Kaeru was seeing herself out, there was no reason to start another pointless fight. They had a dark girl to locate and hopefully recruit. Barring that, the miseria would be coming out of the woodwork any second now. The sun turned red as it slipped below the horizon.

Meanwhile, up above, Hizuki could hear Black Gate’s breathing stop when she mentioned a possible meet up. She hadn’t even finished explaining things before Black Gate tried to cut in. "N-no, Haruna, no, no no no nononono!" She took a deep breath. "No, I do not think that would be a good idea." Then she started to hum, as if considering it. "If you are nearby, maybe I could talk with Evil Eye. I don’t know what they want but I am sure I can’t give it to them. But you’ve done a lot for me, Miss Paladin, so I can at least hear them out. And don’t worry about the GEMs." Miss Black sighed. "I know they don’t like my friends, is all. They would never try to harm me, but I did overhear that they planned an attack on the Detention Club tonight. I wanted to get them out of here before they attacked them again."

Back below, Kaeru could hear the sound of electricity arcing. Oros could hear it too, and her eyes scanned the area to see where it was coming from. Sure enough, a certain lightning attuned magical girl in coveralls strut out from a side street. A miseria attempted to jump onto her back, bit with a twitch of her hand, a tiny lightning bolt flew from her hand and turned the miseria into blackened ash. All done with a smile on her lips.

"Sup?" She let her weapon swing down to her side and power walked towards Kaeru. "Hmmm, that dour look on your face looks kind of familiar somehow. Where have I seen that last…" After rubbing her chin for a bit, she shrugged her shoulders. "Ah, who cares? Friendship is but a chance encounter anyway. I didn’t know Hibusa had any more light girls, so it’s good to see one. I’m Bodacious Boleite, and I’m down for some miseria extermination." Her eyes flicked up to the sky. "But I’m also down for shocking the snot out of some dark girls too. What fancies you?"

Hizuki didn’t hear Bodacious Boleite introduce herself, but she didn’t have to. Of the GEMs, that was the only it could have possibly been. She was not a magical girl that Hizuki had ever met; Hizuki hadn’t met most of the GEMs. Though there were plenty of folk tales revolving around her cheerful personality that inverted once it was time for something to die. She fought with high voltage and allegedly could even change the weather to bring the literal hammer of the gods down on her opponents. There’s one story about her where Boleite pressed her strange weapon into a dark magical girl’s chest and cooked her like a hamburger. Everyone agrees it never happened, but everyone has to share it at least once.

---

What a bore. All Nyxia wanted to do was shoot some Miseria with Roche, and instead she had been dragged into some drama she didn’t give a fuck about. But it could be worse, like more annoying as fuck/creepy magical girls crawling around.

That was when a crinkled up ball of paper slapped into Nyxia’s back, and the familiar snort of a juvenile suppressing a laugh assaulted her ears. Right outside the open window was Morganite, who waved to the dark magical girls she could see.

"Iz tought fa sure ya woulda all left togethah. Dat’s fine, ya can help finish decoratin'." Her shields floated up from a nearby bush, but a long cloth had been tied between them. The shields floated apart and hovered above the windows that belonged to the detention club. At which point it became evident that the cloth had something written on it. With broad strokes, someone had written "The secret base of the stinky Detention Club, home of stinky magical girls: We stink."

Morganite’s cheeks swelled as she suppressed another laugh.

---

Hizuki might have been landing in a few minutes, but Acid Drop wouldn’t have that much time to talk to her therapy eyeball.

*CRACK*

The remains of a miseria bounced across the pavement before landing near Acid Drop’s feet. By the time she looked back up, she could see the batter was back. Her baseball bat was resting on her shoulder, and her other hand was in her pocket. Her lips were hidden behind a bubble she was blowing. It almost got big enough to cover her eyes, but then it popped. She licked it off of her lips and began chewing again.

"I was hoping we’d meet like this." The bat rolled off of her shoulder. "That ultraspeed was an impressive trick. I wonder if you can use it again though?" She continued to walk with her bat dragging behind her. "You’re kind of weird, aren’t you? With something like that up your sleeve you could have seriously hurt us. So is there a reason you didn’t?"

Her eyes moved to the other, much bigger eye floating beside Acid Drop.

"Why don’t I take care of that? Then we can have the nice talk we were going to have last time."

Diamond picked up speed and ran straight for Evil Eye’s eye. Her grip on her bat suggested she would make a strong upward swing.

South Town Scuffle: Two Wolves (Terry Bogard VS Broken Promise)

I don't watch enough wrestling to know how accurate your statement is, but I did take inspiration from a few announcers. Though the names of the movies they appeared in escape me.

You can put your character up. As I told you previously I just want to edit the note descriptions to make them more specific. They still read very general as they were copied over from the Doctrine of Combat Supremacy that all espers use. My goal is to get that done over the weekend, but I do most of my GM posts on the weekends and I've got chores galore today.

So a delay on a totally sweet intro post is fine by me.

Looking to Brawl in a Farm House

Figured we'd be going for lower powers.

Weekend is lookin' a little stuffed on my end, but I will get a sheet back to you at some point.

Kurai Majokko: Tsundere Gekido

"Ah! There you are! The consequences of my actions!"

— Willow

"Mistaken, am eyyyyyyyyyyyyyye?" Her head bobbed side to side. "Perhaps, but it is awfully strange that you’re the first person here. Well, second, but that’s only because glitter bomb down there had to show up before you’d take interest. Hell, even Oros took her time getting here. You’d think the pervert would be the first to arrive." Her grin widened. "I hadn’t expected anyone to show up other than Hizuki. I mean, Oros and Acid Drop are my favorite band mates, but Acid Drop seems a little slow and Oros is, hmmm, easily distracted. But you? No, I wouldn’t imagine the all seeing eye would go out of her way to save me. You have too many plots to make and schemes to hatch." She floated behind Evil Eye’s back and appeared on her other side. "But you also have your eye on the prize, hmmm? Maybe your aloof behavior can fool the others, but I’m much too-"

Willow flipped backwards through the air when Hizuki made a surprise jump up to her position.

"Ah! Language! Language young lady! You mustn't swear at me! I’m actually quite sensitive!" She ran a hand through her hair. "What are you talking about anyway? I was minding my own business when she sat her big stupid frog on top of my unicorn! I was concerned for his well being and I lost my temper. What would you do if someone came out of the sky, crushed Evil Eye flat, and then smugly implied that you were a coward and a weakling." She sniffed and wiped a tear from her eye. "I-I didn’t know what to do! Of course I was going to say something rude! I’m tired of her telling us that we don’t belong here! I’m tired of her blaming us for the Miseria’s appearance!" She hugged herself, but still held her violin and bow in her hands. "I-I just had a moment of weakness. I’m glad you were able to- Oh she’s on the phone." Her expression became totally neutral.

"Hey… Seems this person had your number." It sounded like Miss Black. "The cute eyeballs are everywhere. I think they have me pinned down. I was going to retreat, but there’s a black unicorn goring my friends. I don’t think I can escape without a distraction. I don’t think they’ve found me yet, but I can hear them outside. Do you think you could get the eyeballs to leave the cafe near the intersection? I’m probably being overly cautious. I’ve transformed back, but I just want to get out of here before the GEMS arrive."

Oros was standing at attention on the ground. With a sigh, she glanced upwards at the three girls floating overhead. "Nothing I haven’t seen before." She commented before looking straight ahead. "So um, are we chasing the frog or what?" It was a little awkward that the fighting had stopped as soon as they showed up. Though maybe that would be a good thing is Tsubomi was still unwell.

Mahz's Dev Journal

Hosting animated images on the guild no longer works.

It used to be that GIFs would get converted to WebP files and stop working, but you could still host APNG files as a sort of workaround. Though I see that no longer works. Even creating an animated WebP file does not seem to work. It will work if I run it online locally but not after I upload it to the guild. I'm told this likely has to do with the new image proxy pipeline converting them over, which seems to happen regardless if it's already a WebP or not. Is there a way to adjust said pipeline or maybe some upload settings that would get animations working again?

Looking to Brawl in a Farm House

Do you have any preferences for what you wouldn't want to play against? I have a few ideas ranging from a slasher antagonist to someone who brawls with weaponized sock puppets. I haven't looked super closely at your character sheet yet. I'm kind of new to this and don't have a ton of PvP character sheets on hand. So I'll likely be making something from scratch.